


Regrets and Text Messages

by Inventive_Alias



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Depression, Post-Canon, Shuichi is just really traumatized, Suicidal Thoughts, The only one actually IN the fic is Shuichi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:40:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inventive_Alias/pseuds/Inventive_Alias
Summary: Shuichi Saihara can’t stop thinking about how things could have been different.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Regrets and Text Messages

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly a vent fic. 
> 
> I hope you guys like it!

Shuichi Saihara was never a loud personality. Not before the game (as he learned through weeks of looking into who he could have been) and definitely not after. 

Yes, after everything they had been through together, he was able to open up a little bit to Himiko and slightly more to Maki, but he had mastered the art of saying things that didn’t lead anyone closer to the truth. The more things change, the more they stay the same. He was still terrified. 

Sometimes he replayed the recordings of his season—he hated that term but what else could he call it—to see everyone alive. To replay his triumphs and mistakes. To see what he had missed by living through it all. 

Today he watched Kokichi Oma. 

Kokichi really had been trying to save everyone. He had never been what everyone had thought. And the only reason they ever thought that in the first place was because of speculation from Rantaro Amami when Kokichi had just been stressed and trying to give everyone a chance to rest. That one comment had changed everything for Kokichi, everyone attacked him from then on. He went from obnoxious to evil. 

And Shuichi hadn’t even noticed. 

He had long since cried silently, apologizing to a screen, begging a dead person for forgiveness. Now he was watching. 

Everything had pointed to the mastermind from the beginning. Korekiyo had even called her out. How much had he known? Did he know? 

“I’m so plain. I’m so plain. I’m so plain.” Her stupid catchphrase. Why hadn’t anyone told her to shut up? 

Danganronpa season 53 was something he couldn’t binge in a day. He had to stop before he really wanted to. 

It was an obsession. 

It turns out that that hadn’t changed between the person he saw in the audition tape and himself. He was always going to be obsessed and hung up on Danganronpa. 

His anxiety stomachache worsened with every second he was awake. 

He didn’t eat breakfast anymore and he forgot to shower some days. He tried to keep up with nighttime exercises but it hurt too much to think of Kaito. 

He thought about playing a recording of Kaito’s voice to help him sleep like Maki had been doing when they had first gotten out. He didn’t, thinking of giving a Danganronpa fan more views on a “every time Kaito Momota talks” compilation. 

Maki had wanted to live with him, but her family (which felt so weird to say out loud when he first found out) had wanted her to stay with them “for a while”. She still didn’t have any memory of them all these months later, but she apparently had a younger sister who she was growing closer with. She called him once a week to talk about her nightmares. It used to be daily. 

Sometimes he wonders if one day she just won’t call him at all. 

Himiko was also living with Maki’s family. She had never heard back from her parents and Maki had immediately jumped into action. He can’t remember how exactly she had convinced her parents to let her stay with them, but with how Maki usually persuaded people… it was clear that she needed someone familiar around her. 

Shuichi had said he was fine. It was okay that they didn’t want to take him in too. Really, he preferred to have his own place anyway. Maki and Himiko could move in with him when Maki’s family felt like she would eventually go back to visit them. It was all fine. 

Shuichi wasn’t fine. He knew that if he broke down, everyone else would follow, so he had to wear a mask like he had been doing, but it was so hard. Trial 1 kept playing through in his head. He wondered over and over again if he could have taken the fall for everything since the trial was already rigged. 

Would Kaede have done as well in the game? She’d have had to realize that the trial was rigged when he died. Would more people have escaped? 

Sometimes people outside would recognize him from Danganronpa. “Kiibo’s inner voice” a part of him always interjected. 

He had whipped around hearing Monokuma’s voice on a train to see a kid whose earbuds had fallen out. The kid had gasped and asked if he could take a photo. Shuichi had gotten off at the next stop. 

His phone lit up with a notification. A selfie of Himiko, Maki, and Maki’s younger sister was sent to him. They all looked happy. Maki’s eyes were lit up. He smiled and typed out a reply, making the picture his new lockscreen before putting his phone down again. 

He stared at the glowing stars he had bought with Maki and Himiko to put up on the ceiling when they thought they could all live together. 

He was in the process of looking into everything he could find about who his friends had been before Danganronpa. 

Kiyo had been an only child. 

Rantaro had significantly less sisters. 

Kokichi had a blog dedicated to Danganronpa. He was an “Ultra Despair Girls” fan. 

Miu had an office job of all things. 

He didn’t want to look for the real Kaito or Kaede. He wanted to remember his friends as he knew them. He knew he’d eventually run out of people and have to look for them too. 

A legal loophole had made it so they only had to be eighteen to sign with Danganronpa rather than the legal twenty without asking for a legal guardian’s permission. He wondered how many people would have been saved if that loophole hadn’t existed. Even idol groups had to get parental permission. 

Rantaro looked different in the interviews from right after season 52. He looked more tired. 

Shuichi wondered if he looked like that now. 

They were finally the same age. 

According to the paperwork he had signed, that they all had signed, the memory erasure and rewriting might have caused damage. Rantaro’s reaction time could have been slightly slower. That haunted him sometimes. 

The contracts gave them money, but never promised them their memories back. 

Shuichi thought about the stranger he had seen auditioning and wondered if he would even want to remember him. 

Kaede died thinking that she was a murderer. 

Shuichi lived knowing that he had wanted to be one. 

He sometimes wondered why he was still living.

Maki, Himiko, Kiibo, Kaito, Kokichi, Korekiyo, Tenko, Gonta, Miu, Kirumi, Ryoma, Kaede, Rantaro. Their wish. They all wanted out. Some wanted out so badly that they—

Shuichi was living for them. 

His phone lit up. Maki asked if he could make it to…. something. He couldn’t get himself to finish reading the text, his head hurt. He saw the word Tuesday and said he’d try. He sent it with an exclamation point to look excited. 

He put on one of the playlists he had apparently made before the game—the account was his, after all—and closed his eyes. 

The lyrics that wafted out from his speakers made him wonder if he had really ever changed at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, the exact song I was thinking of was ヤングアダルト by Macaroni Enpitsu
> 
> It’s a really good one, take a look at it!


End file.
